Cricket Special Report: The http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Green-c60723 Guys Going Blue (Part 2)
The upcoming tour of England was one that was characterized by rebuilding for Pakistan. With the world cup approaching Afridi was looking for the right combination for his young and inexperienced team. Who knew the nightmare would be in London’s streets.
A couple of videos, a few headlines and the funeral of cricket’s integrity was the outcome of the test series.
After losing the first test Afridi chickened out of test match captaincy but it wasn’t him, it was the team that was terrified by their once colonial masters as they slumped on a total of 78 following a total of 80 in the second match. What an achievement!
Breaking record after record.
The best performing players of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 for the year done away with, the spot-fixing drama passed and the team combination disturbed again. The one-day series started on a low with heated discussions about the future of Pakistani cricket. Despite the fight,
the Englishmen were too good for the visitors in the first two matches of the ODI series. Umer Gul’s fireworks in the later part of England’s innings in the 3rd contest ensured a long awaited victory for Pakistan. The men in green walked out on
the field on September 20 with their faces lit up in hopes of pulling off a miracle once again, Abdur-Razzaq’s on-slot and tight bowling by the spinners in the middle of the innings took the series to a decider. Pakistan rose up to their reputation and lost
the decider comfortably by a margin of more than a 100 runs.
If there is one thing that comes naturally to the Pakistani team its unpredictability but this time they outdid themselves. The batting in the last match was no less then self-loathing. Tormented by the English media they decided to take the responsibility
upon themselves and managed to do it with ease.
The series against South-Africa has not only been full of action it has also given drama a whole new meaning. With wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal out of the side, Afridi thought he had the next best but half a man for the job. On the eve of the fifth and last
one-dayer of the series, Zulqarnian Haider ran away with his tail up his sleeves claiming to have received death threats from bookies for not accepting bribes. It was not as good as Hollywood but not too bad either.
South-Africa ran away with an easy win in the first and last ODI. In the second, third and fourth contests Pakistan came two runs close to taking a lead of 2-1 in the series in the third match but not to be. Pakistan won the second and fourth game with
one ball and one wicket remaining in the match on both the occasions, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 won the third match by 2 runs to win the series 5-2.
A comedy of errors or a series of unfortunate events, what has happened to the Pakistani cricket team in the year 2010 is the saddest thing that could ever happen to any cricket-playing nation. Pakistan cricket this year has been characterized by infighting,
bad decisions, unpredictability, corruption allegations, misuse of power and some mysterious cases(like that of Haider). Every time the Pakistan cricket team comes close to winning a series it seems like they have been sent on a goose chase. Trying and not
winning is one thing but making a habit out of losing a series after making a come-back is a sin and it becomes evident after watching the team’s attitude in some of the matches that they are not only disappointing their fans, they are disappointing themselves
too.
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